“There was a slight language barrier and we just conceived music so differently, so changing things was very difficult for both of us. There was lots of compromises we made and he made. It was a pretty challenging project but we ended up with a song that he was happy with and we got there.” The song, Az Eshq Tho, evolved from an Afghan folk song that appealed to The Tiger & Me as something to expand upon.
“He played us a couple of folk songs and we really liked them. We thought, ‘Let’s use that as a starting point and then change it to the extent that it’s original’.”
The Tiger & Me are well experienced in collaborative songwriting and sharing ideas and responsibilities was central to the sextet’s creative approach on their new LP, The Drifter’s Dawn.
“There’s songs on the record that were 100 per cent written by one person and then there’s songs on the record that all six of us contributed to evenly. A lot of the time there’ll be more than one lead singer on a track and whoever’s singing that particular bit of the song has probably written their lyrics and maybe even their melody.”
One of the record’s standout moments, the dynamically structured Waltz #3, is an impressive coordination of individual members’ parts.
“That’s definitely an example of the most collaborative end of the scale. Because we’re all singing separately, we all wrote our own bit to that. The music that sits under Jane (Hendry, vocals/violin), that was all very intricately figured out by each player.”
The Drifter’s Dawn is the concluding chapter in a three-part exploration of insanity, preceded by the EPs The Howling Fire and The Silent City. The series has a marked conceptual agenda, focusing on mental unrest, resistance and manifest madness, however the idea to embark upon the trilogy was arrived at through serendipitous chance.
“We had a bunch of songs written before we did the first EP and we put them all together and looked at what we had. We noticed that it lined up into those three categories. We thought we’d group like-with-like for the first couple of EPs; we put a bunch of manic ones on the first EP and a bunch of down ones on the second EP. Then obviously the third one’s an album, so we can explore more highs and lows there.”
Another aspect of the band’s unforced approach is upholding relaxed creative liberty with their songwriting, rather than moving in a consciously mapped direction.
“We try not to over think it, we just try to write good music and the through-line kind of takes care of itself. Occasionally we’ve brought a song in that just sounds like a different band and we’ll choose not to use that one. But as a general rule we just write and the sound kind of takes care of itself.”
The Tiger & Me’s creative interactivity is conducted with the intentions of benefiting the band. Establishing a democratic mode of operation, necessary for The Tiger & Me’s collaborative process, has been made possible by their strong friendships.
“Because we’re all good mates, and Jane and I are a couple, we had the conversation early on to not take it personally if we want to change ideas, and to try and take the ego out of it. If someone changed your song your natural reaction is to resist. Early on we had that conversation and tried to build up mutual respect. Now we sort of have the luxury of being able to say to each other ‘I don’t want to do it that way, let’s try it this way’.”
The Tiger & Me sought out to capture their spirited live sound on The Drifter’s Dawn. The band elected to record the album with renowned Australian producer Steven Shram because his past work recommended him as someone who could assist them in realising this goal.
“When we looked at doing this record I drew up a list of producers and Steven was at the top of the list. The albums that he’s made have got this energy and they just sound alive. The Vasco Era, The Cat Empire and Eagle & the Worm albums that he did, those three in particular.”
Seizing the energy of a live show on record can be a frustratingly elusive exercise, but Shram advised the band not to strive for perfection, nor be over-analytical of what was put down to tape, but to have faith in who they are as a live entity.
“Previously I’ve been obsessed with getting everything perfectly in tune and perfectly in time. Shramy’s approach was a bit more warts ‘n’ all. If the vibe is right, if the energy of the take is right, then we use it and we go from there. As a result, a lot of the tunes on the album are live takes, a couple of live guide vocals with the live mix and everything.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
